The Digital Tipping Point

Is Web 2.0 really the only reason why youth digital activism is so successful in mobilizing public engagement? A look into the transformation of Blank Noise’s blog from a one-way communication medium into a site of public dialogue and collaboration reveals the crucial factors behind the success.

What images popped in your head when you hear the term ‘digital
activism’? Those that popped in mine are of campaigns that originated in the
Internet, perhaps with a blog, a Youtube video, or a Facebook group, mobilizing
people to take part in a certain action to advocate for a cause or to respond
to a specific event. Whether the request is to sign a petition for a new
legislation or to wear a specific colour on a specific day, the campaigns also
ask people to spread the message, usually responded by re-tweets, status
updates, and link-shares that appear on my timeline. These campaigns, like the
famous Wear Red for Burma or the Pink Chaddi, are usually responses to certain
events and dwindle after the events have passed.

With its four blogs,
two Facebook groups, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter account, at first glance Blank
Noise certainly resembles the images in my head. However, they popped one by
one as I got to know Blank Noise better. For one, as I have shared before,
Blank Noise was not a response to a specific event but rather the long term,
ongoing, structural problem of street sexual harassment. For another, street
interventions started as the main core of Blank Noise and have remained a
crucial element despite its prolific online presence. Blank Noise did not start
in the Internet nor did it immediately turn to Web 2.0 for its
mobilization.

The main blog was created soon after Blank Noise
started in 2003 to serve as an archive, information center, and space to
announce future street events. The diverse online campaigns, lively discussions
in the comment section of blog posts, and abundant blog post contributions by
people who have experienced, witnessed, or committed street sexual harassment
started after two unexpected events that I call ‘the digital tipping point’.

The first was when
Jasmeen Patheja, the founder of Blank Noise, started uploading pictures of her
harasser, taken with her mobile phone, to the blog in March 2005. The first
picture was of a man who had stalked and pestered her for coffee despite her
rejection to his unwelcomed advances. While some readers applauded her action,
many challenged the post. How is the action different from “Can I buy you a
drink?” Can it trigger the change wanted, especially since the guy might not
even have access to the Internet? Is the action of publicly labeling the man as
a perpetrator of street sexual harassment ethical, especially since the man has
not been proven guilty?

These challenges then spiraled into a long
discussion (72 comments!) about the grey areas of street sexual harassment and
the ethics around confronting perpetrators. Although Blank Noise still continue
to upload snapshots of harassers (this intervention is called ‘Unwanted’),
their pictures have since then been blurred until the face is unrecognizable,
including the one in the original post. This event was when Jasmeen realized
that the blog also has the potential of being a space for discussions,
opinions, and debates – the public conversation that Blank Noise aims for.

The second tipping point was when one of Blank
Noise volunteers proposed an idea of a blogathon to commemorate the
International Women’s Day in 2006. Blogging had become a major trend in India
around 2004 and the blogathon basically asked bloggers around India to write
about their experience with street sexual harassment in their private blogs and
link the post to the Blank Noise blog. The bloggers invited were both women and
men, people who have either experienced, witnessed, or committed street sexual
harassment. The blogathon was an immense success, perhaps due to the
frustration on the silence and downplay of street sexual harassment into eve
teasing. Suddenly, eve teasing became a booming topic on the web and Blank
Noise received media and (mostly the cyber) public attention.

This is when the idea of online interventions
started. In the following year, Blank Noise created the first of its blogs that
consist entirely of contributions from the public: the Action Heroes blog, a growing compilation of women’s experiences in
dealing with street sexual harassment. It is then followed by Blank Noise Guys and Blank Noise Spectators, which
respectively concentrates on the experiences of men and people who have
witnessed street sexual harassment. Other than the community blogs, the main
blog also introduced collaborative online campaigns in 2008, such as the
‘Museum of Street Weapons’ (a poster project that explores how women uses
everyday objects to defend themselves against street sexual harassment) and
‘Blank Noise This Place’ (a photo collection of places where street sexual
harassment occurs). These interventions were not only online; they were also
collaborative and invited the public to participate.

These tipping points are intriguing not only for
being the triggers to Blank Noise’s transformation to one of the most important
digital activism in India (Mishra, 2010), but also for the reason why they are
successful in doing so: they are able to attract public participation.

The first tipping point was able to attract people
to participate by commenting on a post. The said post was very simple; it
consists of a picture and a one-paragraph text that depicts a conversation
between the harasser and the woman:

“stalker no.
1: " Excuse me, have we met before?" machlee: no Stalker no. 1: Yes
we have! On commercial street! I work in a call centre. I am a science
graduate." machlee: why are you telling me all this? stalker no. 1: can I
have coffee with you? machlee: can i photograph you? stalker no. 1: yes! sure
you can! stalker no.1: blah blah blah” (Patheja, 2005)

Having been used to NGO pamphlets and blog posts, I
have come to equate discussion on sexual harassment as a very serious
discussion with long text and formal language. This post is so different from
what I was used to, but it was clear to me that even though the language was
casual, the issue and intention were serious. The casual presentation
spoke to me “we would like
to share our thoughts and activities with you” rather than “we are an
established organization and this is what we do”. It is not the space of
professionals, but passionate people. As a blogger myself, I recognize the
space as being one of my peer’s and immediately felt more attracted and comfortable to jump into the conversation.

The second tipping
point attracted the more active, substantial participation than commenting;
many people actually created texts, photos, or posters for Blank Noise. It was
possible because Blank Noise opened itself. Jasmeen opened up to an idea of a
volunteer, who opened up to the possibilities offered by the cybersphere.
Instead of depending on a core team to conduct an intervention, Blank Noise
opened up to a project that entirely
depended on the public’s response to be successful. Moreover, Blank Noise
opened up to diverse points of views and many types of experiences with street
sexual harassment.

It is widely
acknowledged that the success of a digital activism lies on its ability to
attract public collaboration; however, the digital tipping points of Blank
Noise underline several important factors behind the ability. Attracting public
engagement is not always a result of a meticulous pre-planned intervention. On
the contrary, it might spawn from unintentional events that welcome diverse
points of view, adopt a peer-to-peer attitude, invite contributions, and most
importantly, touched an issue that is very important for many different people.
Web 2.0 is an enabling tool and site for dialogue, but it is certainly not the
only reason behind the success of digital activism in galvanizing youth’s
engagement.

This is the fifth post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital
Natives Knowledge Programme.

Reference:

Mishra, G.
(2010) ‘The State of Citizen Media in India in Three Short Ideas’. Accessed

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Author

Maesy Angelina

Maesy Angelina worked on a research on the activism of digital natives under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme while pursuing her MA in International Development, specializing in Children and Youth Studies, at the International Institute of Social Studies - Erasmus University of Rotterdam. After graduating, Maesy practices being a hybrid in Jakarta, where she works as a programme officer on gender, women and development while exploring research initiatives on Digital Natives in Indonesia.

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